A Sniper's Ruminations [Problems/Suggestions]

Discussion in 'PlanetSide 2 Gameplay Discussion' started by BetaGuru, Jul 29, 2013.

  1. Erilis


    I've always found it a bit oxymoronic that the infiltrator is ideal of spotting enemies but has to give away his position to do so. This is the ******* future, can't we just assume he's using coms to spot instead of yelling it from where ever he is (bush, tree, mountain side, window, etc)?

    You can argue that it's useful to have him trade off concealment for spotting but I think there's just not enough to gain through spotting to justify him risking his neck like that.

    I think a nice compromise would be to have the character quietly spot his target as if speaking into a mic (or walkie-talkie if you will ;)). So you'll still hear him if you're close but it will be in a very quiet voice, almost a whisper... Just not yelling.

    It's the difference between :cool: and :eek:
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  2. Jkar

    We're in the future and we're all having some sort of implant or at least information display and sensors in our helmet and armor. It wouldn't be too far fetched to have an infiltrator designate targets with hand signs, eye movement or thought and have it picked up by his equipment to be sent to everyone in range. Now we need a sabotage device which introduced a sensor jammer that interferes with or sends falls spotting information to the enemy (hello decoy grenade, this thing wants a purpose).

    And on the topic of sniping I think a rework of sniper rifles is in order to make them behave more like they would in RL and also make them true side grades to each other, currently the higher tier sniper rifles are just better in every aspect. My thought on how sniper rifles should work is partly based on reality in that the bullet actually does less damage if the target is close to you because it passes through the body at a high speed, destroying less tissue while as the bullet goes out and gets slower it actually rips bigger holes into your target.

    So my thought on this would be to make minimum damage occur from 0 to 50ish meters maybe 75 then damage would increase to maximum and at 200 meters out they start to fall off in damage again until they deal their minimum damage at about 300 meters again.

    Lower cert cost beginner sniper rifles would have faster bullet velocity and in turn less damage, meaning their effective kill range would probably be between about 100 meters to 200 for maximum effect, the faster bullet velocity also helps newer players a bit. Higher tier sniper rifles would have slower bullet velocity and higher damage, meaning they will have a larger range in which they deal their maximum damage but trade bullet velocity which makes them harder to use at range and especially on moving targets.
  3. Bill Hicks

    One shot kill snipers cannot be in this game. Imagine squads of snipers just spamming. Mass combat games simply cannot have one shot snipers. If there were weather effects, lots of cover, and more counters to snipers then it might be viable.
  4. BetaGuru


    Not only can they... they are in the game. I'm guessing perhaps you have not played much? Or, more likely, sniping is already so ineffective that you simply haven't noticed them.

    Also, what isn't a counter to snipers in this game? Air vehicles, other snipers, pretty much any weapon can reach them, enemy hunter cloakers... there's all sorts of stuff. I find your response perplexing.
  5. Bill Hicks


    I guess should be more specific: LONG RANGE ONE SHOT SNIPERS ARE BAD.

    KNIVES ARE A COUNTER TO MAXES AMIRITE?
  6. TheBillOf3D

    Yes, depending on loadout of the enemy, they can OHK. I don't mind not getting the kill if I weaken the enemy such the friendly can take them out easily. But wouldn't mind getting a buff to hitting a moving target from 200+m.
  7. Snoozzzer

    There isn't enough cover for both snipers to hide and grunts to seek shelter. Removing nanoweave from one's face not only aids snipers but rewards skilled grunts who get an even better TTK from headshots.

    And headshotting you from 250 meters away is a skill. Your entire head at that range is a smaller target than the mil-dots on a scope, the projectile velocity is atrocious, and judging drop is a pain (a nightmare for those with silencers).

    I spend 7 minutes getting in position avoiding aircraft and exposed sprints, calculating for distance and drop, patiently scanning the battlefield while squad chat yells in my ear about liberators, tanks and snipers, finally finding someone useful I can hit, waiting for them to slow and stop for the few seconds I need to aim and fire, and then having to pack up and move again to avoid countersnipers and rocketpods.

    So you're telling me after all that, the bullet I so painstakingly put into this guy's face should not in fact turn his brain matter into mist, but wound him, give him a fat arrow and blinking red dot telling him and his buddies where I am, so I could then die?


    But dropping in as a light assault, throwing C4 and emptying two clips to then fly away with several kills in a 10 second timeframe is cool too
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  8. Serpent808

    I'm not saying your bad... Just informing you of the nitty-gritty details behind Nanoweave 5/5. Ya it diminishes our ability to just Headshot-wins a player. Hell I wish we could just one-body shot kill, and give us a massive input delay or reload time in between. I'm leaning towards the idea that Sniping by design, is just bad, and SOE has really no love for us. I'm not attacking you, or saying your bad. I just feel that any veteran, long-range sniper still using a Parallax past BR 50, is just sad. It's an insult to the art and the expectations... Not to be insulting, but it's like you still need the training-wheels on your bicycle at the age of 20... Spectre and the Phantom, if you can learn to snipe with them, or learn to use the scope for targets past 200 m, it is really good weapons... Take advantage of the no bullet drop sniping at it's best with Semi Auto... This makes Vanu, long range snipers excel at long range sniping the most. Now if we could ever talk PS2 Devs into giving us more Muzzle Velocity, because we are suppose to be the faction with all this mobility, and high-class tech... Last I recall, a packet of particles that move at the speed of light, travel at the speed of light... So if our pew-pew-guns shoot plasma, a burst of particles that switches in state, and that purple-ly-goodness gets flung at you, wouldn't it move a lot faster than 560 meters per second??? Muzzle Velocity should go up past 600 meter per sec on a no bullet drop sniper rifle. Doesn't that seem unreasonable... Hell, for the TR, give their future mini-guns more RPM for all I care... I don't think it would be unreasonable if they went past the 15 bullets per second mark; or maybe give them a heavy weapon that acts like a Bullet-storm like weapon. Something that fires 300 bullets per sec, you have a low up time, and a long reload time....
  9. Lagavulin

    Another 'I want even easier kills' thread. Great.
    Not sure what some people want to accomplish other than that. There isn't really much more to sniping than finding a good position, sitting back and racking up easy kills whilst pissing ppl off. Why on earth should it accomplish any more? It's hardly a front line activity!
    I don't consider myself 'skilled' yet I get plenty of kills whilst sniping (which I do enjoy tbh) - stop trying to make out it's some uber-skillful part of the game. I actually wish SOE would make it require more skill to get ohk's.
  10. BetaGuru


    If it's such an easy path to easy kills, then why are there so few snipers on the leaderboards? Why do many of the large tactical-minded outfits ignore infils altogether?

    The point is not for "easy kills". The point is, if I score a headshot at 300m, I should be rewarded because that's not easy. Also, because I have literally done the maximum I can with the weapon provided. Think about that. If you perform the maximum possible application of any other weapon in the game, you are often rewarded with a kill because each weapon is designed to excel at a certain thing. If, for example, you score six point-blank pump-shotgun hits in a row, you're provided six kills. Because that's what the weapon is supposed to do, and thats the best you can do with it.

    BASR rifles are designed for patient, deliberate headshots on soft targets. Nothing more. The most I can do is get that headshot. But for rather cheap, people can shrug that off. Imagine that for any other weapon; for example, if you could cert into ignoring a lasher's splash damage. That's what the weapon DOES. That's what makes it special! If you make it possible in this game for people to shrug off a headshot from a BASR, when that is the weapon's maximum application, all you're doing is pissing off the sniper who possibly spent money on the gun expecting one thing that fails to deliver.

    This isn't about looking for easy kills. I'm already getting the headshots, you see? I'm asking to be rewarded for the skill I am already exhibiting, because I feel I am being robbed. Not because I feel I am not being gifted. Can you see the difference?
  11. Jkar

    You can nearly ignore a Lashers splash damage with flak armor. It doesn't provide you total immunity but neither does nanoweave against sniper rifles. However I do agree that sniper rifles and infiltrator gameplay in general are very unrewarding both in terms of cert gain and impact on the battlefield. Spamming radar darts is basically the only really useful utility an infiltrator brings to a fight once all terminals are hacked or more likely were destroyed before you got to them.
  12. Dingus148

    Not necessarily. By denying them a hit marker, they know it's a sniper, and if they want to search for you they need to expose themselves again. This avoids the b/s factor of OHKs (think counterplay) and gives the opportunity for a follow-up shot.
    The difference is risk. A sniper exposes himself to little risk; an enemy must cross his prime zone before he can even attempt to retaliate...2 body shots will all but kill him in this case. This means a sniper is something that cannot be fought and this simply isn't fun. On the other hand, shottymen (thank you DoomRL) must close the opponent's prime range before attempting to destroy their enemy. It's high risk; the high reward follows (even if it's not high skill).

    Not saying sniping isn't skilled. It is. But if it is made more lethal, it will end up ruining the outdoor infantry game. Snipers contribute little, if anything, to the team. Infiltrators contribute; snipers pad their K/D (whether intentionally or otherwise). Giving snipers greater ability to sit on the edge of a battle and get rewarded seems foolish to me. Now, if sniper shots at <50m weren't OHK, I'd like to see that changed. But a sniper at 300m plinking away from a ridgeline in perfect safety? No thanks. Perhaps a scaling HS multiplier, reducing the damage at extreme range but buffing the damage in close? Combine this with a HS bonus regardless of kill (scaled up at extreme ranges) and suddenly long range suppression and close range lethality are viable. If you're supporting the team with well placed, extreme range shots, you now require less kills to see progression. But the incentive to get in-close and be available to help the team (as well as expose yourself to equal damage as your teammates) seems like a step in the right direction.
  13. Kunavi

    Some people either have not played Infiltrator long enough or TheoryCraft too much about it. Others obviously have no idea what a LR Scout/Sniper(NOT dedicated MarksMan or we'd have RenderDistance of 1500~) is about. Others just suffer from too much "The grass is greener on the other side of this fence". Then, some Infiltrators are giving us a bad name and some others simply have no clue how to counter them or even approach their position(Goes with not having played them once) hence QQ. Finally some others compare Infiltrator risks with Shottie YOLO risks(LULZ). Different things. So different they should not be in the same sentence.

    Snipers have problems at the moment, the OP did a good job presenting them and I've read through all this garbage some people replied with, saying Infiltrators are either fine or OP; 369 Hrs total play(According to STEAM) plus my Stats, and all I got to say to these claims is "BS".
    • Up x 1
  14. illgot

    Yes. Some got a video of them head shotting a player using a silenced BASR and it did not kill them less than 30 meters away. The player in fact looked at the infiltrator and killed hime before he could reload for a second shot.
  15. illgot

    Sorry but have you played a sniper in this game? Anyone that can headshot targets for a 1 shot kill can be 100 times more effective using any other infantry unit.

    Name a single shooter were snipers were the only class played.
  16. Campagne

    First thought: "I like this guy already."

    As for the rest of your post I completely agree and I wish I could do more than click the "up" button icon to show it. :D

    In regards to "Wonky Hitboxes," have you also noticed that bullets can pass through the foreheads of other players?
  17. BetaGuru


    A comment on risk.

    A pasttime of mine is to look at the killboards of top players. I like to see what they use to rack up those crazy sweet kills. Oftentimes if I get killed by one of PS2s few e-celebrities, I'll remember that and when I'm done playing, take a look at their players site.

    I've noticed a trend. MAXes and ESFs. (And until recently, Harassers, oh god the harassers). I don't think many would be surprised.

    Now this is not, of course, the same for everyone. Murda, for example, likes to run around as a cloaker with an SMG, but he has openly admitted that his playstyle is very different from most. He cares nothing about K/D and instead focuses on the K. Get in close, play hyper-aggressive, get as many kills as possible as fast as possible.

    If you've watched video of talented ESF pilots at work, are you seeing much risk? Most of them are experts at getting in, racking up a bunch of rather easy kills, and then getting away scot-free. When I drive a skyguard, I want to say that 80% of the air targets I engage escape before I can bring them down, and that's me driving a vehicle whose primary function is killing aircraft.

    You see, if people don't bring very specific weaponry to bear against an ESF, it's really not subjected to much risk. Forgetting about the TR for a moment (because if you think the lancer and phoenix are on par with the striker, please send me what you're smoking because it must be some truly powerful stuff) few troops are carrying anything much that can threaten them. They're only in real danger if someone happens to have with them the few specific tools meant to bring them down; namely, lock-on AA, mMAXes with AA, or skyguards.

    Similarly, Snipers are not exposed to much danger, unless there are elements on the field specifically designed to take them out. Can't tell you how many times I've been shelled from far away by a tank, or countersniped, or taken out by an enterprising enemy infil. I pride myself on being a talented sniper who can survive longer than most and get more kills than most, but even I find myself struggling to rack up epic killz at ranges +200m. It's just too difficult hitting moving targets at that range, and pretty much any rank of nanoweave will shrug off my headshots because of damage reduction. Distance based damage reduction.

    Distance

    Based

    Damage

    Reduction

    On a sniper rifle.

    Its worse if I use a silencer, which of course I do not because I'm not a fool. But that means that every shot I take points a straight line to my position, and all someone needs to do is hit Q for the entire enemy empire to know exactly where I am. All that's needed is an AV rocket to my face, or an ESF, or a tank, or freaking anybody to return fire and, like an ESF, I need to skedaddle.

    Except, unlike an ESF, I don't have freaking rocket pods. Which might be why we don't see many snipers on the leaderboards. Really, Mustarde and Torokokill are the only two that spring to mind on Mattherson. I'm sure there's one or two more, but no way they're even close to a significant percentage.

    Sniping just isn't that gamebreaking, and wouldn't be any moreso if I got headshot kills all the way up to Nano5. Think about it; if you survive a headshot, its with a sliver of health. You can't DO anything with that; you need to hide and heal up. About how long does that take? A few seconds less than respawning? All it does is deprive me of a kill; the battlefield effect is pretty much equivalent.
  18. Tr0jan


    one shot kill as long as its a head shot is fine and should reward a kill, with nano wave 5 or without it
  19. Campagne

    Thank you for this. I found it very entertaining and informative. :D
  20. allattar

    Also remember the cert investment for nanoweave, vs investment for bolt actions.

    Thats a lot of cert points on ONE class to survive a headshot at its maxed level. To max out nano on all classes?

    And snipers are crying its unfair?